


Testimony

by Alquera



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen, Translators are traitors and I am no exception, Yes even if I'm translating the stuff I wrote myself, don't know what i'm talking about
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24138880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alquera/pseuds/Alquera
Summary: The Warrior of Light had collapsed on the street on Amarout. No one was around to see it.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Kudos: 6





	Testimony

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [证明](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24056404) by [Alquera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alquera/pseuds/Alquera). 



> *Set just before the final showdown with Hades, during the exploration of Amarout with the Scions  
> *Female WoL, not named  
> *Not sure if the opening and ending quotes are adequate, but please indulge me for putting them here anyway. They are one of my favorites from the Fate series, both the anime and the mobile game.

>   
>  _“For example, how would you feel if something you left behind could aid the people of the next era?_
> 
> _“It will feel like the proof that I lived.”_

“Lily…no…please, stop.”

Despite the endless daylight out there, deep down the Tempest it should have been quiet and dark. The eerie florescence of unnamed plants, the flicker from the countless windows of strangely shaped skyscrapers in Amarout, nothing more. But her ears were ringing nonstop, and everything she saw was white. Those fellows back in Crystarium could just close the shutters and ignore, however briefly, the raging light in the sky. She was denied even such self-deceptive luxury, because the light was raging inside of her. She tried to close her eyes and concentrate, but without the distractions of the floor patterns, the white just became more suffocating.

Then the shade of white shifted just a little: it was the dimming of the faerie’s aura. She could still hear the quiet fluttering of her wings, very close. Her connection with Lily was almost one-sided in a sense: no one knew the state of her aether better than her own faerie, who responded to even the tiniest injury she sensed in her summoner. She, on the other hand, could only perceive Lily as a clutter of warmth in the flow of the aether, pulsating faintly with the rhythm of her heart.

Could an ethereal being like a faerie understand the concept of pain? Or is she just fixing living beings the way tailors put patches on torn clothing?

The answer didn’t actually matter. Even flesh-and-blood healers like herself could become numb to injury and suffering after experiencing too much of it. She could patch her own wounds more hastily than when she was sealing a letter with the mail morgory chirping impatiently beside her. A little pain couldn’t kill. As long as one’s life is not at stake, there should be nothing to complain about. Besides, the embraces of a faerie are always tender and soothing, easing the pain of the one being healed.

—Except for when the pain actually became enough to kill. Here she was, face down on the street of Amarout, unable to move, and when Lily was trying to heal her, the slightest disturbance of her aether made her feel sick and nauseous.

Casting Aetherflow could, literally, made the aether in herself flow more quickly. Might have sounded like a good idea, but she’d rather not try it again. Her aether felt like a blob of gel-like stuff, and any attempt to stir it hurt her so much, it was like squishing and churning her innards. Her muscle had spasmed when the pain hit her, and she lost control of her limbs. A good thing she didn’t pass out, although it was hardly better to fall on her face against the cold, alien marble ground.

 _It’s no big deal._ Just a scratch, not even enough to draw blood. She tried to struggle back on her feet. The street felt clean under her fingers. No grit rubbed against her palm. _Could this place have been someone’s home?_

Her arms shook almost as badly as a morbol’s tendril. _I’m so tired._ Even if she could somehow manage to stand, how much farther could she walk? Her friends were back at the aetheryte plaza, waiting, but there was still some time before the agreed rendezvous. No one was around. _Is it okay to rest like this? For a bit longer?_ Maybe if she allowed herself to rest some more, she could—

She could die. Not that it was something new to her. She had four Lightwardens’ worth of light inside her, and it wasn’t going anywhere. There was no way to reverse the stagnation of the aether’s flow. Her death would only be a matter of time. The process should not have been so painful, but both her body and her soul were stubbornly refusing to let the light take over. Her heart slowed till it was hardly beating anymore. Her blood turned sticky and pale. The whiteness in her vision coalesced thicker, like fog on a rainy day. She would wake up in the morning and for five minutes couldn’t remember her own name. And she still lived. At least for now.

 _Keep breathing. Keep thinking._ It all became so hard, while letting go remained the easy way out. Emet-Selch was an asshole, but she knew he’d keep his word and free her from this torture. _What the Night's Blessed believed in could be essentially the same thing as the aetherial sea. I’ve been there, once._ Could there be someone waiting for her arrival—？

“Lily…I’m sorry…”

The faerie’s form dissipated in the moist, salty air. One of her arms was pitched under her in such an angle, her fingers were inches from another piece of soul crystal, stowed away close to her heart.

She felt the greatsword’s weight on her back as it manifested. _Breathe._ She was too weak to stand, but she needed to. If the pain would not stop, maybe she could channel it instead—?

It worked. Too well. Tendrils of darkness crept into her vision. The strength returned to her, but so did the negative emotions she pushed out of her mind, and that was a new kind of incapacitating agony. She writhed as the two forces, light and dark, fought for control inside her, as the voices whispered out her failures, her fears, her regrets. _You changed nothing. You saved no one._ The skies of Norvrandt were still poisoned with excessive light. Her friend was badly wounded, taken captive by the Ascian, and she didn’t even know if he was even alive. She herself was a step away from her “metamorphosis”. She would become the most powerful Lightwarden the world had ever seen, the monster that no hero could ever hope to beat. She would either destroy the worlds she once pledged herself to protect, or beg for mercy at the feet of her enemy. She would—

 _Live._ Fray’s voice whispered to her, an anchor in the vortex of light and darkness. Live. It was his wish. _Her_ wish. Her mind grasped at it; an instinct developed from countless times harnessing this power. But she had difficulty understand its meaning. _Why?_ If this was what it takes to live, then maybe—

_（_ _Are you hurt?_ _）_

Incredibly, she heard another voice. Words in a language she didn’t recognize, but somehow understood. A stranger’s voice.

The hooded figure bent down at her side. Slender, graceful, face hidden behind a mask. She had not expected one of them to wander to this part of the city. _It’s just a memory._ A shadow Emet-Selch created for his own comfort. Yet—

 _（_ _It’s all right, child. We all fall, and we all feel pain if we do. Cry, if you wish. Rest, if you need to. Then you should go home. Your family will be worried if you linger here for too long._ _）_

She froze.

_Home. All this time, he had only wanted his true home. It was once here, but it isn’t here now. It was never even meant to be. His home, his family, they are no more. They were gone eons ago._

She still had them.

Her fingers had dug themselves into the fabric of her dark cape. It was Tataru’s handiwork, soft and light and weatherproof. She saw it then. The Lalafell in her pink eastern-style costume, her hair the color of cherry blossom. Her mischievous smile mirrored in Krile’s face when the two girls shared their little secrets. The faraway look in F’lhaminn’s eyes when she sat alone, watching the people scurrying about in the settlement of Mor Dhona. The travel stories told to Lord Edmont over steaming drinks in his brightly lit drawing room, often on snowy days. The smile of a beloved former commander in a portrait, looking over the main hall of Camp Dragonhead. Merlwyb’s calloused hand, which once held hers the one time they danced in the celebration in her honor, and which went to her pistol when things turned sour in another celebration. The soft, entrancing voice that vibrated with the winds of the forest when Kan-E-Senna and her siblings chant. Raubahn’s scowl easing when he looked into Nanamo’s clear green eyes, the silent yet unwavering loyalty they shared. Ayemeric’s pensive look when he talked about the future of his homeland. Hien’s laughter when they hunted together in the Sea of Blaze. The crimson swirl of Lyse’s dress when they sparred on the palm of a god. _There should be more names. Their faces blurred and I couldn’t tell them apart. I should have remembered. I should have cared more. They are from home._

Home. She had a cottage in the village of Mist, but that was just one of the places she stayed during short intervals between her missions. There was more. The jagged walls and mountains of the old Ala Mhigo palace. The leisurely Namazu fishing in the creeks of Onsal Hakair. The ever-falling snow in Coerthas. The clear blue sky above the clouds of Abalathia. The shimmering crystals around the Floating City of Nym. The morbols wandering about in the Hopeseed Pond. The giant fish occasionally spotted leaping out of the sand dunes of Sagolii Desert. A bunch of Nymeia lilies found on a cliff near Azys Lla, where, if one looked carefully, the air still glittered as if there were swirls of stardust floating. _The_ _Crystarium is my home now, probably._ Her room back in the Pendants had the scent of her favorite perfume, where she could eat sandwiches and talk with ghosts. Her journey had started from a distant corner of Eorzea, but an adventurer’s home was never limited to just one city, one country, or even one continent. Wherever she went, she went with family, and with family there could always be home.

_He had long ceased to treat our kind as his kin, even those who were of his own blood. He once told me that The Ascians had eternal life. And so, for eternity, he had been alone. He felt betrayed, disappointed by our flaws and our selfish motives, again and again. To the extent he could trust nothing but his memories of his home._

She could relate. The bitterness of betrayal was nothing new to her. The army she helped raise had turned against her, wearing the uniform she herself gave them. The kingdom she helped save had accused her of treason and assassination. The people she fought so hard to protect had forced her into exile in a foreign country. After her heroic attempt to protect a camp of soldiers, one of them had lured her into a trap and almost executed her for heresy. Yes, she too had plenty of reasons to be disappointed. She had friends now, fiercely loyal comrades that risked their lives to save her, but should she fail her struggle and be deemed beyond saving, they would have no choice but turn against her, too. Many had asked her why she chose life as an adventurer, and she had trouble giving a straight answer that doesn’t sound half-hearted. Be it for money, fame or power, it had never been rewarding enough for her efforts.

 _But we had never truly fought for ourselves, never before, and not now. We chase shadows. We seek to change the world for something better, which may never be good enough. His notion of “better” was to restore it to what it once was. In his memories and in his imagination. What of mine? Was it_ _—_

_—_ _Oh._

She never really needed a _reason_ to live. She simply needed the courage to keep _living_ , and this kind of courage never came from her.

She had courage, but only because she was _not_ alone.

_A smile better suits a hero._

The dying wish of a cherished friend. In her weaker moments she had resented this. How could she smile with someone tearing away a piece of her heart? But in time she began to understood. She could let this kind of loss eat her away, or she could carry it onwards, building on the common goal she once shared with the lost. She could doubt if there would be enough people willing to support a worthy cause, or she could bear witness to those who already gave everything to support it. She could moan about being manipulated and slighted by some because of her weakness, or she could try not to fail the others that still believed in her strength. She could be afraid that she’d never make it out of this alive—or she could smile. If not for G’raha and the Ironworks and all those who helped her and her friends along the way, in the Source and in the First, from this era, from the past and from another future, she would never even have made it this far. A smile was the least she could do for them. For him.

One more step. As long as she still had a last bit of strength for that, she would live. She would find Emet-Selch. She had to, not only for G’raha, not even only for saving the two worlds, but to prove that those she was trying to protect had its worth, unlike what he believed. She didn’t know why his opinion had even mattered, but she had a feeling that he should understand. Well, on the condition that she _did_ manage to prove herself, and she had no clue how she could possibly do it.

Getting up from the ground sounded like a good place to start, though.

“Thank you.” She said aloud, knowing before she opened her eyes that the robed figure would have already disappeared.

She decided to give herself one more minute, so she closed her eyes again. _Could this person also be something in my head?_ It wouldn't have mattered. The city itself didn't even exist in reality. It was just a shadow of what it once was. An echo Like her Echo. _We are more alike than he would care to admit. We both draw our strength from the forgotten past._ _The people that were lost, the things that went wrong. They are the reason we stayed relevant._ For him, the past was the only thing that mattered. For her it was not. However much she lost in the past, she knew that tomorrow would always come. And she would not dwell in the past while she still had a chance to make that tomorrow something better. Something that might actually be worth living for.

She didn't remember summoning anyone for help. But when she opened her eyes again, there was him standing over her in his dark armor, hand outstretched. She took it, let him pull her back up on her feet, and watched as he faded back into the shadows without a sound. The white fog in her vision hadn't cleared, but the pain had ceased to muddle her thoughts, giving her mind some breathing room. A distant voice seemed to be yelling her name.

_It's Alisaie. I must have been absent long enough for her to worry. Better be off, quickly._

Head held high, she again took a deep breath, and tried a smile. It was the one that she used to practice facing a mirror, one that looked relaxed and confident.

For no apparent reason, she felt someone's eyes on her. It was a feeling that she had gotten used to lately. Who could it be this time? Friends? Ghosts? Shoebills? Wyverns that had slumbered for eons? Or someone else, someone known to no one, that seemed to be pulling the string for them all?

Whatever the case, there were eyes that she could be sure of their constant watchfulness. They were the eyes of Lily and Frey. They were the eyes of the past and the forgotten. And they were the eyes of friends that were looking out for her.

_We should never have been truly alone._

>   
>  _“That’s right.”_
> 
> _“We are all connected. I think we go through life using not only our own strength, but also the hard work of those who came before.”_
> 
> _“That is what it means to live on this planet.”_
> 
> _“What you do will surely help someone in the future.”_
> 
> _“Like they’re saying, ‘What will you add to this?’”_

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: LENGTHY BLABBERING AHEAD. SKIP IF BORED.  
> First off, thank you for reading this far. This is actually a translation of my previous story in Chinese, and I’ve tweaked a lot of details during the translation so it felt like writing it all over again. I do hope it is not too bad, because English is a second language for me, and because I had never actually played the game in English. Took forever to figure out how to spell the names and places. (And there are a lot of them. Ugh.) If I overlooked any mistake, be it the lore or the wording or grammar or anything else, pray tell. Thanks in advance for helping me improve my work.  
> When comparing the Chinese and English in-game text (and Japanese, too, with a little help from Google translate), I’ve come to discover that it wasn’t just the details that were changed during the translation. This was particularly true for the English version. Most of the time it was just slight adjustments for coherence like what I did with my own work, but sometimes they rewrite the conversations in such a way that even the character personality sounded different, to an extent that I couldn’t quite recognize them as the same person. The DRK questline…let’s just say that they are talking about different Frays altogether. I had tried to summarize the difference, but any conclusion I made was still too long and fuzzy and complicated. So, if you are interested in exactly how different it was, feel free to ask in the comments and I’d do my best to explain in-depth. As for the particular Fray in this fic, well, maybe I dubbed a little bit from both versions, but most of the stuff is headcanon. Your call on how to interpret what I wrote.  
> To be sure: I’m not complaining about this kind of difference. In fact I think it is interesting, but it may cause confusion and I-thought-this-was-IC-but-it-was-not-because-no-one-could-read-Chinese-or-Japanese situations, so I figured I’d better just get the cat out of the bag. For all I know, it might not matter, because fanfic is all about different perspectives. (And probably because no one cared to read fics this bad, like mine.)  
> Again, thanks for hearing me out. If there’s anything you’d like to say or ask, please post comments. I like comments. :P


End file.
